THE federal government has hit back at a Labor campaign against changes to childcare subsidies, accusing the Opposition of trying to “trick families” into blaming Tony Abbott for rising childcare prices.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten and Labor’s childcare spokeswoman Kate Ellis today confirmed they will write to 14,000 childcare centres across the country, asking them to fight back against the government’s decision to freeze indexation on the means-tested childcare benefit.

The move follows the Prime Minister’s decision to write to childcare centres during last year’s federal election campaign, criticising Labor for freezing the childcare rebate.

“Australian families know the current child care system is not working and needs real, lasting reform, not a desperate and cynical Labor letter-writing campaign,” Ms Ley said.

The Coalition frontbencher accused Labor of failing in government to keep their promise of making childcare more affordable.

“Labor is clearly worried families are blaming them for child care fees skyrocketing 53 per cent during their six years in government,” she said.

The war of words follows a decision by the government to introduce legislation to pause the indexation on the means-tested childcare benefit, which senior Department of Education officials said would impact half a million families.

Speaking at a childcare centre in Melbourne, Mr Shorten said the Opposition would continue to fight against the indexation freeze.

“This budget is so unfair to hundreds of thousands of Australian families who rely on child care centres such as this all over Australia,” he said.

“Never before has Australia been witness to such a massive attack on support for child care for ordinary families,” he said.

In government, Labor paused the indexation on the childcare rebate, a non means-tested payment, which provides parents with half of their childcare costs up to a total of $7500 a year for each child.